Richard Goode

About Richard Goode

Through regular performances with major orchestras, recitals in the world’s music capitals, and acclaimed Nonesuch recordings, pianist Richard Goode has won a large and devoted following. The New Yorker has said, "What one remembers most from Goode’s playing is not its beauty—exceptional as it is—but his way of coming to grips with the composer’s central thought, so that a work tends to make sense beyond one’s previous perception of it … The spontaneous formulating process of the creator [becomes] tangible in the concert hall.” And according to the New York Times, “It is virtually impossible to walk away from one of Mr. Goode’s recitals without the sense of having gained some new insight, subtly or otherwise, into the works he played or about pianism itself."

In 2007–2008, Richard Goode has performed and curated a multi-event residency at the
South Bank Centre in London as the year’s Artist-in-Residence, and has performed recitals in such cities as Berlin, Paris, Milan, Toronto, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Berkeley. His orchestral appearances include the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the baton of James Levine at Tanglewood, the London Philharmonic with Kurt Masur, the Concertgebouw Orchestra with Ivan Fisher, the New York Philharmonic with Sir Colin Davis, the San Francisco Symphony with Alan Gilbert, and the Radio Philharmonique in Paris with Peter Oundjian.

In addition to his "engrossing" (New York Times) eight-event Carnegie Hall Perspectives in 2005–2006, Richard Goode was invited to hold master classes at the City’s three leading conservatories—Juilliard, Manhattan, and Mannes—and to give two illustrated talks on his Perspectives repertoire at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In the 2006–2007 season, he was honored for his contributions to music with the first ever Jean Gimbel Lane Prize in Piano Performance, which culminated in a residency at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

During the 2006–2007 season, Richard Goode played recitals in the major music capitals in Europe and the United States, including London, Paris, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Edinburgh, New York, Washington DC, San Francisco, and Philadelphia. His orchestral appearances last season included the Budapest Festival Orchestra under the baton of Ivan Fisher and the DSO Berlin with Herbert Blomstedt.

A native of New York, Richard Goode studied with Elvira Szigeti and Claude Frank, with Nadia Reisenberg at the Mannes College of Music, and with Rudolf Serkin at the Curtis Institute. He has won many prizes, including the Young Concert Artists Award, First Prize in the Clara Haskil Competition, the Avery Fisher Prize, and a Grammy Award. His remarkable interpretations of Beethoven came to national attention when he played all five concerti with the Baltimore Symphony under David Zinman, and when he performed the complete cycle of sonatas at New York’s 92nd Street Y and Kansas City’s Folly Theater.

In addition to his most recent release of Mozart solo works, Richard Goode has made more than two-dozen recordings, including Mozart concerti with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the complete Beethoven Piano Sonatas, the complete Partitas by J.S. Bach, and solo and chamber works of Brahms, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Busoni, and George Perle. Goode is the first American-born pianist to have recorded the complete Beethoven sonatas, which were nominated for a Grammy Award and universally acclaimed. With soprano Dawn Upshaw, he has recorded Goethe Lieder of Schubert, Schumann, and Hugo Wolf for Nonesuch. The four recordings of Mozart concerti with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra were received with wide critical acclaim, including many "Best of the Year” nominations and awards and his recording of the Brahms sonatas with clarinetist Richard Stoltzman won a Grammy Award. Mr. Goode’s first, long-awaited Chopin recording was also chosen Best of the Month by Stereo Review and described as “absolutely magical ... glorious playing.”

Over the last seasons, Richard Goode has appeared with many of the world’s greatest orchestras, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Levine, Haitink, and Ozawa; the Chicago Symphony under Eschenbach; the Cleveland Orchestra under Zinman; the San Francisco Symphony under Blomstedt; the New York Philharmonic with Sir Colin Davis; and the Toronto Symphony with Peter Oundjian. He has also appeared with the Orchestre de Paris under David Robertson and toured on a number of occasions with Ivan Fischer and his Budapest Festival Orchestra, as well as making his Musikverein debut with the Vienna Symphony. He has been heard throughout Germany in sold-out concerts with the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields under Sir Neville Marriner.

As a recitalist, Mr. Goode has become a favorite throughout Europe as well as the United States, including regular appearances in New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Chicago, Paris, London, Amsterdam, Vienna, and the leading cities of Germany and Italy.

Mr. Goode serves with Mitsuko Uchida as co-Artistic Director of the Marlboro Music School and Festival in Marlboro, Vermont. He is married to the violinist Marcia Weinfeld, and, when the Goodes are not on tour, they and their collection of some 5,000 volumes live in New York City.